In this case they may have thought it was fatally injured by the fish hooks but it gives me pause to automatically kill these enormous creatures. Be it huge squids or sharks or snakes or whatever. When I see a tremendous shark hanging upside down or dead at port I feel like now the world is missing something wonderful. Albeit I'm the first one to pour over their photographs, I wish we did not have to catch and or kill magnificent things to study them or show them off. Just let them live like they have been doing.
Agreed....they are all part of God's Creation and they all have their place in the grand scheme of things.
I believe that this is one of the reasons why commercial trawlers such as the one featured in this story have observers from the Fishing Ministry (and other governmental agencies are on vessels from other countries) on board....they ensure that things are done according to the law and no wanton culling is engaged in. From the article, it sounds as though the matter was considered carefully in this case, and it was determined that the animal would not have survived if it had been released and so the decision was made to bring it aboard due to it's value to science.
Could it be near death because it had the bends?
I am thinking because it was hooked on a line,then maybe it had ascended too quickly and couldn't decompress.